for my mother. If I can come back from whatever doom the Beast has in mind for me, I will return to haunt you unless she lives the rest of her life in luxury. Deal?’ he demanded.
‘Bargain,’ sighed the demos.
Thus it was that a rather tipsy Ion, stripped, washed, oiled, combed and prepared as if for roasting (as he privately considered) walked unsteadily to the edge of the grove, carrying the lamb and leading the kid. The elders kissed him and gave him a gentle push, and he went in under the ilex trees 16.
It was prickly underfoot. He was pleased that he had retained his sandals. As there was a trodden path, Ion followed it. He was watching the reactions of the goat. Ion had the highest opinion of the sense of self-preservation of goats (sheep not so much) and this one was tripping forward on its little hoofs, occasionally trying a prance. Not concerned at all. It did bleat once, but that was during an educational experience, ie, that holly leaves are too thorny even for goats to eat. Especially baby goats who have soft mouths.
The path led to a clearing in which there was a temple with gorgeously painted red and golden walls. It was made of stone, faced with plaster. It was beautiful. Ion put down his lamb and released his kid to graze amongst the ferns and flowers. Above the temple was a patch of sky. The Pleiades soared into the empyrean.
Soon. Suddenly Ion was not drunk at all. He saw that the temple had a bench and sat down on it. He examined the paintings to keep fear way as long as possible. They were surprising. Some were of animals, cleverly depicted and beautifully coloured. Some were of people, everyone from old men to young boys. But there was no dedicatory statue. No image of the God or Goddess to whom this temple belonged.
He was mulling this over when he heard the most dreadful howling that had ever insulted mortal ear. He clutched his head. The sound went on and on, shaking him to the bones. He fell to his knees. The lamb cowered against him. The kid had vanished.
And then came the Beast.
He was huge. His body was man-shaped, streaked with blood and blue paint, but his head was the head of a bull, with lolling tongue and rolling eyes. A minotaur. Just Ion’s luck, he thought. The howling cut off. The Beast stared, fists on hips. It glared through its strangely glassy eyes.
‘A fine evening,’ said Ion, getting to his feet and bowing as he did to his own Goddess. He was not going to be just torn apart and eaten like common prey. The Beast was going to remember Ion.
The beast did not reply. Ion approached it. The beast did not move. Ion sniffed. He knew that scent. A herbal smell connected with making tapestries.
‘You are a very beautiful beast,’ he said. ‘Can I be of some service? Polish your horns? Comb your forelock? Which I now perceive to be horse hair? And I can smell glue. And woad. That bull mask must be very heavy. Wouldn’t you like to take it off and explain to me what this is all about?’
A strange noise came from the bull mask. It took Ion a while to identify it. Inside that echoing shape, the Beast of the Grove was giggling helplessly.
Ion helped him to sit down on the bench and lifted off the mask. It was heavy and packed with some sort of machinery 17.
He set it gently on the floor. The Beast was revealed to be a good looking man with the blue eyes and golden hair of a God. He put both hands to his aching belly and positively cried with laughter, gathering Ion to his painted chest the while.
‘No one,’ he gasped after some time, ‘no one has ever reacted like that. Come, bring the lamb, come to my house. I’ll tell you everything, my wise young virgin.’
Ion complied. The beast lived in a pleasant, conventional house. Ion added his lamb to the small flock grazing outside. The walls inside were painted by the same hand as the temple - radiant, ingenious, engrossing. The Beast watched as a couple of maidens sat Ion down, washed and dried his feet, and gave him a clean tunic. Then, smiling, they laid out a feast, filled wine cups, and left, hand in hand.
‘You don’t kill the sacrifices, do you?’ he asked. ‘You aren’t even interested in changing their status.’
The Beast snorted. He really was very good looking, once you got used to the pale eyes. His mouth was red, with full sensual lips. His voice was deep and pleasant.
‘Of course not. I take virgins so they won’t be leaving a spouse or a baby. I take the ones who want to leave the village. And find them proper destinations. However, Elene and Sappho wanted to stay with me. And now, make a good meal,’ urged the beast, ‘and I will explain.’
Ion remembered that hour as the strangest that ever clepsydra 18 measured. He ate soft cheese and new bread and listened avidly. The beast was attractive, though his colouring was so strange. He was having a Demetrian effect on Ion, who had never missed having a lover before. Now he was wondering what the beast tasted like, if he were to just touch the tip of his tongue to that scarlet mouth.
The beast spoke fast and used idiom freely, but Ion suspected that this was not his native tongue. And his story was strange, but to someone who had spent a childhood reading Hesiod 19, not impossible to believe.
‘So you travel in time, you were bored where you were born, and you came here to paint and because you like the people and the climate,’ he summarised.
‘Indeed,’ sighed the Beast, scratching idly at the flaking paint on his hip. Ion went on.
‘You guard the demos of Karanthos with strange devices, including that howling produced by sub-sonics, whatever they are 20, and in return the demos feeds you,’ continued Ion.
‘Yes,’ said the Beast, popping another olive into his mouth. ‘The olives of the future have lost all savour.’
‘And you take a tribute so they don’t take you for granted, and find places for the virgins the village didn’t want, and who didn’t want to stay.’
‘I specified a willing sacrifice,’ replied the Beast. ‘I never had such a beautiful and clever one before.’
‘Will you let me stay with you?’ asked Ion. ‘Take me with you when you leave?’
‘Yes,’ said the beast, starting slightly as Ion laid a hand on his painted thigh.
‘And, since I am now dedicated to another God,’ Ion breathed into his mouth, ‘meaning you, I don’t have to stay a virgin anymore.’
‘Charite,’ said the Beast of the Grove, embracing him.
Footnotes
1. Minoan cities, indeed, were not defended, which argues command of the seas, see Rule Brittania.
2. basic unit of Greek government - the village council.
3. Crete.
4. The original word is thirio, which is beast, not echidna, which is monster. An important difference.
5. When cross, Apollo fired his arrows of plague into a village and everyone died. A touchy deity.
6. Aphrodite came from Cyprus, and thus as known as ‘the Stranger’. She was the goddess of Erotic Love.
7. A complex machine of wheels and gears, probably designed by
